Movies Archive

A Marvel Comics hero is giving George Washington some company on the quarter, but the U.S. Mint doesn't think the stunt is so super. To promote the upcoming film "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," 20th Century Fox and The Franklin Mint altered 40,000 U.S. quarters to feature the character.

The U.S. Mint said in a news release Friday that it learned of the promotional quarter this week and advised the studio and The Franklin Mint they were breaking the law. It is illegal to turn a coin into an advertising vehicle, and violators can face a fine.

/Film has released news detailing that Paul W.S. Anderson is set to write and direct Castlevania, the movie based on the popular Konami video game series. As far as Mania is concerned, the movie has been in production since the middle of this year. I'm assuming with a release for 2007. Anderson, who has directed such see-saw films such as AVP and Resident Evil is sure to have either a major bomb or a major money maker on his hands. If anything, I'm certain it will breathe new life into the Castlevania video game franchise.

Mike Judge has produced two of the most popular cartoons ever made (Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill) and the definitive office comedy movie (Office Space) so it's a bit confusing why his newest feature is apparently being burried. Even if Idiocracy is a crummy movie (which I doubt) why the hell isn't Fox giving Judge the benefit of the doubt?

Apparently, Americans aren't the only ones upset with current president George W. Bush. In Toronto, on September 10, the movie, Death of a President, is a "fictional documentery" featuring the president of the United States's death. I can't wait to see his response, if the movie will even be able to be released in the US, that is.

The rumor's have it! The next Batman movie, entitled The Dark Knight, will begin production in 2007 and will feature none other than Heath Leger as The Joker. Returning will be Christian Bale as Bruce/Batman and Christopher Nolan is once again set to direct.

Let's hope they don't pull another Hollywood tradition of killing a franchise after the first movie. Read the full scoop at Sci Fi Wire.

There's a lovely little film festival in full swing right now in Traverse City, Michigan (full disclosure: I'm a native of Michigan). Documentary director Michael Moore, Governor Jennifer Granholm and actor Jeff Daniels were on hand Monday to kick it off. If you happen to be in northern Michigan there are still tickets for sale so come check it out.

My two big must-see movies for this week are Borat and The War Tapes. Any other movies in the lineup look interesting?

I've probably seen the original Back to the Future movie more times any other movie. It was the first movie we owned on VHS and it was years before we bought another tape. Imagine my suprise when I read that the Michael J. Fox role Marty McFly was originally played by Eric Stoltz (Mask, Pulp Fiction, 2 Days in the Valley). The crazy part is that they filmed 6 weeks (6 f**cking weeks!) with Eric Stoltz.

This is obviously very old news, but it just blows my mind to think about anyone besides Michael J. Fox playing Marty.

John Perry Barlow: I've got good news and bad news and good news. And the good news is that you guys have managed to buy every major legislative body on the planet, and the courts are even with you. So you've done a great job there and you should congratulate yourself.

But you know the problem is - the bad news is that you're up against a dedicated foe that is younger and smarter than you are and will be alive when you're dead. You're 55 years old and these kids are 17 and they're just smarter than you. So you're gonna lose that one.

But the good news is that you guys are mean sons of bitches and you've been figuring out ways of ripping off audiences and artists for centuries.....

or at least he saved some folks from a strange series of events. This awesome 8 minute short film will give you insight as to the true power of a turntablist. Check out doubleedgefilms then click on Spin at the top and then clickWatch It at the bottom left. Can you say "aww yeah"? Hells yes!

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (genuises behind the successful comedy/horror flick, "Shaun of the Dead," as well as the Channel 4 comedy series still mostly unknown to the majority of people in North America called "Spaced.") are now in the production phase of their new movie. The movie is a buddy cop-type in the same... ahem... vein as SOTD. It will star Simon Pegg as police constable, Nicholas Angel and Nick Frost as Danny Butterman. A wide array of popular and talented British actors fill in the rest of the slots and it looks like it should be another great success for the two writers.

Read more on the upcoming movie (set for release in Feb '07) as well as other news on the cast of Spaced at their official website

Tad Stones, who is supervising director and supervising producer for the two upcoming straight-to-DVD Hellboy animated movies, continues to update the blog for the projects and has revealed a first look at the animated Abe Sapien. Read the blog for more information on its progress.

Side note: Some character design work was partially done by a great comic artist, Cheeks (aka Sean Galloway), who is also a member at deviantart. Check out his gallery.

This movie trailer about the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11/2001 has certainly stirred up some controvery in the USA. Is it too soon to be recreating these tragic events? Will people line up to see a movie where they know all the protaganists are going to die at the end? How much do we really know about what went on up there?

Harold Ramis chats about Dan Aykroyd's Ghostbusters 3 script with InFocus magazine. Ramis says he'd like Ben Stiller added on, but the snippet doesn't mention the other two Ghostbusters -- Venkman (Bill Murray) or Winston (Ernie Hudson). There's also no word on Sigourney Weaver. Hopefully they'll all be signed on for the third installment.

Growing up in the 80s and being a huge Bill Murray fan the original Ghostbusters was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I had a Ghostbusters t-shirt, the cheesy soundtrack and even a few of the toys from the crappy cartoon spinoff. Hopefully the new flick will live up to my unrealistic childhood expectations.

Sooooo, anyone remember the US is still fighting a war in Iraq (and Afghanistan) right now? Americans and Iraqis are still fighting and dying and we're all just pissed that gas prices keep getting higher.

Anyway, here's a preview of the upcoming flick Jarhead which takes place in that other Iraq war. I'm really excited for the release of Jarhead mostly because Sam Mendes is directing. His last two movies were American Beauty and Road to Perdition -- both great flicks in my humble opinion.

LOS ANGELES — James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died early Wednesday. He was 85.

Watch out for a Transformers Movie in 2007. I'm guessing this will be a feast for the eyes with outstanding special effects, but will they make a lame kid's movie or a movie geared more towards adults? Hopefully Dreamworks finds a talented director and crew to bring it to life.

As much as I hate Marvel right now for their idiotic lawsuits of the 'City of Heroes' developers, I'm kind of excited to see what they do with their new movie deal with Paramount (up to 10 movies in 8 years).

Personally, I think this is the best footage of the movie yet, and it looks very very cool. From what we can see here, part of the movie will explain Bruce Wayne's backstory, which hasn't been done on film yet. The costume looks wicked cool!

Saw the trailer for the Assault of Precinct 13 remake last night. Looks like it could be pretty decent. Before you check out the new movie do yourself a favor and watch John Carpenter's original work. A couple of scenes are pretty shocking even today.

The maker of such classic films as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "Bride of the Monster" has a porn flick that will be available for purchase soon in both softcore and hardcore releases. Maybe it's just a publicity stunt to promote the release of Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" on DVD.

Just caught "Team America: World Police" last night. Hoo boy, what a fantastically offensive flick that is. Parents who make the grave mistake of taking their kids to this because it has puppets will be in for a treat.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker -- creators of the animated cable TV series "South Park" -- had to tone down some puppet on puppet action for their upcoming film "Team America" in order to get the NC-17 rating knocked down to an R.

"For the opening title sequence of Spider-Man 2, renowned artist Alex Ross created original paintings representing scenes from the first Spider-Man movie. Now these paintings will be available in an auction, with all proceeds going to benefit cancer research (click here. for the official press release)."

The fab four are set for the upcoming Fantastic Four flick. The cast is as follows... Jessica Alba form "Dark Angel" (Invisible Woman), Ioan Gruffudd from "King Arthur" (Mr. Fantastic), Chris Evans from "Cellular" (Human Torch), Michael Chiklis from "The Shield" (The Thing) and me main man Dr. Troy aka Julian McMahon will play Dr. Doom.

Caught the martial arts epic "Hero" today. Very "Crouching Tigery" in both good and bad ways. The colorful battle backdrops and a couple of really nifty duels make this one worth seeing on the big screen.

It's interesting that the filmmakers decided to tie such a huge fantasy to China's actual unification. It's like if a movie about the United States had George Washington catching bullets with his teeth.

AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list was really lacking in the original scores department and it didn't even include "Uncle F*cker" from "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut". :)

I realize that a lot of the famous scores probably didn't get much consideration because there are no lyrics, but a great score can evoke so much emotion from us without us even realizing it.

Composers like John Williams ("Star Wars", "Jaws", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Catch Me If You Can", "Superman") Danny Elfman ("Batman", "Pee Wee's Big Adventure", "Beetlejuice") and Thomas Newman ("American Beauty", "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Road to Perdition") bring so much to a movie.

Although I've only seen one film ("ah, l'amour") I'm totally entranced by the Bitter Films web site. If you've ever had any interest in animation (especially 2-D animation) you gotta read the production journal - it's amazing/scary/unsettling.

According to the FAQ on the site they are planning a 2005 release for a DVD collection. I'm waiting with bells on.

Saw "Shrek 2" the other night. Inspired me to get cracking on a few Shrek icons.

"Shrek 2" really seems like an adult cartoon (not that kind of adult cartoon... perv) with a few slapstick gags thrown in here and there for the kiddies. The computer generated scenery is spectacular, the story is clever and that donkey is funny as hell.